The surge in popularity of the internet has spawned numerous internet access providers. These internet access providers, such as American Online™ or ATT™, provide users with access to e-mail. E-mail may be sent and received from other users on the internet.
E-mail addresses have become popular of both business and personal use. Often recipients will have more than one e-mail address, sometimes with different internet access providers. Virtually every student or business person requires an e-mail address as it is becoming a common mode of communication.
Numerous factors have limited the growth and general usability of e-mail. First, e-mail account information often changes. Whether a user is a student in high school or in college with limited access to the internet, a business person or any other e-mail user, chances are that their e-mail address have changed at some point in time, in conjunction with a graduation from school, changed jobs, etc.
Another aggravating factor is that the life span of the average computer is growing shorter. Many new computers come preinstalled with internet access software. Users often find it difficult to install new software and end up changing their e-mail account. Disconnecting one e-mail account and starting a new one has the unfortunate, and previously unavoidable, consequence of shutting down the old e-mail address and never receiving any e-mail sent to it after it is discontinued.
In addition, new technologies, such as digital phones and pagers, that have the ability to receive text messages, are not capable of being connected to existing internet e-mail accounts.
The present invention solves these and other problems by providing a universal e-mail system that is operable with all types of e-mail software and access service providers. A method and apparatus is disclosed that gives every subscriber a single e-mail address that is linked to other e-mail accounts or services. The present invention is not primarily directed to reading e-mail, rather the focus of the present invention is on the bouncing of e-mail to pre-determined user identified accounts. If a user switches internet providers, from Erols™ to American Online™ for example, there is no need to change the user's bounce e-mail address. In this case, the user simply changes the destination of their bounced e-mail messages. Messages received by the bounce account simply get re-routed to the new e-mail account.